Posts Tagged ‘group’

A tour of about 100 Eretz Israel Lobby activists from central Israel, led by MK Yoav Kish (Likud) and MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), was harassed and then physically attacked by a mixed group of leftwing Jewish activists and PA Arabs, when they visited the squatters’ enclave outside Susiya, in Area C, where the Supreme Court has ordered the Israeli government to demolish the illegal Arab shacks lean-to structures of the Nawaj’ah family, but work there is being delayed because of EU and US pressure. The leftwing and Arab demonstrators yelled anti-Israel slogans and waved signs condemning the Regavim movement, which is dedicated to enforcing court decisions against illegal Arab construction everywhere.

Eretz Israel Lobby Co-Chairman MK Kish said in a statement, “We witness today an irregular case of an illegal Palestinian takeover of the South Mount Hebron areas, a treasure trove of ancient Jewish settlement from more than 1,500 years ago. I focus all our forces and efforts to prevent this trend, and it will be stopped.”

Co-Chairman MK Smotrich said in a statement, “The illegal village of the Nawaj’ah family is a stain on the State of Israel. It’s a settlement of former Yatta Village residents who established themselves on State lands over two decades. The court has ruled time and again that these illegal dwellings must be evacuated and yet there’s no response. The US State Dept., in a rude and inappropriate intervention, demands that the State of Israel permit the illegal village to stay, and we have come today to protest this intervention in internal Israeli policy and to demand the immediate removal of this illegal village.”

Mount Hebron Regional Council Head Yochai Damari said there was a connection between the failure to enforce court decisions on the ground in Susiya and the revival of Arab terror attacks in Jerusalem and Hebron. And Regavim CEO Yehuda Eliyahu called on the Prime Minister not to surrender to the unacceptable pressures from abroad and to act in the best interests of the State of Israel while maintaining the rule of law.

Is entering Area B without coordinating it with the authorities a criminal offense? Israeli police have apparently begun to charge Israeli citizens who enter these (few) parts of Judea and Samaria where, according to the Oslo agreements, the PA enjoys civil control and security is managed jointly by Israeli and PA forces.

On Friday, August 26, the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court agreed to a police request to distance a group of 13 Breslov hasidim from Judea and Samaria for a period of 60 days because on Thursday night they had entered the village of Kifil Haras (Timnat Heres, location of Joshua’s tomb), near Ariel in Samaria, to pray at the tomb. The group was attacked by rock-throwing Arabs. Soldiers and police who arrived at the scene promptly detained the Jews.

Kifil Haras is located in Area B, which Israeli citizens may enter at will, just as they are permitted to drive on sections of Route 60 which cuts through the Area B Arab town of Hawara, as well as on the road from Jerusalem to the Jewish community of Nokdim.

Legal aid society Honenu attorney Chai Haber said in a statement Monday that he finds it difficult to understand the police unprecedented approach, “claiming that entering Area B, which is permitted to Israeli citizens, constitutes the criminal offense of ‘public nuisance,’ due to the fact that Arab terrorists throw rocks and endanger the lives of Israeli citizens.”

As is often the case in these hearings, Judge Smadar Abramovitch-Kollende sided with the police and ordered the restraining of all of 13 detainees from entering any part of Judea and Samaria for 60 days.

Haber complained against Israeli security forces who detained his clients. He said that “instead of protecting the worshippers, the IDF and the police decided to detain them. I was not surprised to hear from the police representative during the deliberation that not one of the rock-throwing Arabs had been detained.”

“This is a slippery slope,” Haber argued, adding: “Tomorrow the IDF could decide that instead of dealing with the individuals throwing rocks on the roads, they will detain the Jewish residents driving on the main roads, some of which are in Area B. We will file an appeal on the scandalous decision to distance the worshippers from all of Judea and Samaria.” He also wondered “why it is that the left-wingers who entered [Area A] Ramallah [in June 2016] and were attacked [by local Arabs], were not detained, while the worshippers who entered Area B were detained.”

The police argued that although entry to the Area B village of Kifil Haras is permitted to Israeli citizens, there are scheduled, guarded entries to the village, and because the Breslov group did not coordinate their arrival with security forces they were charged with being a “public nuisance” and with “disturbing a public servant in the performance of his duty.” Police claim that by riding into the village unaccompanied, the hasidim provoked local Arabs’ anger, endangering their own lives and the lives of the soldiers who were sent into the village to protect them. In court, the police argued that a week earlier Breslov hasidim had entered the city of Shechem (Area A) in order to reach Joseph’s Tomb in Area C — which police believed bolstered their demand to bar them from all of Judea and Samaria, including Area C.

As we mentioned earlier, attorney Haber asked police in court whether the rioting Arabs had been detained and was told that none of them had been picked up, because, according to police testimony, security forces did not want to “create a provocation, but rather acted to save the lives of the suspects.”

But they did much more than save their lives, as Haber noted: the Jewish worshippers, some of them only 14 years of age, were detained for interrogation at 3 AM and brought to court only after 2 PM the next day. This was in violation of Israel’s Youth Law. Another violation: their parents were not invited to the court deliberation. Haber said some of the minors complained of police brutality and one of them said that a policeman threatened him with a Taser gun.

Farmers at the Forefront, an initiative of the Regavim NGO whose mission is “to ensure responsible, legal, accountable & environmentally friendly use of Israel’s national lands and the return of the rule of law to all areas and aspects of the land and its preservation,” is offering free legal representation to Israeli farmers who have shot criminal invaders on their property.

“Feel abandoned? Afraid to sleep at night? Need counseling and legal defense? We’re on your side,” says a press release from the new organization, which sees itself as a bulwark against the plague of burglaries in Israeli owned farms both inside the green line and in Judea and Samaria.

The Regavim press release describes dozens of calls the group is receiving from farmers asking for legal counseling regarding invasions of their agricultural plots as well as their private domains in Kibbutz, Moshav, and private communities. One such individual was a farmer from the Aviam moshav in the Golan, who has endured years of harassment by criminals from the nearby Bedouin town of Tuba-Zangariyye. Two years ago he was attacked by three Bedouins who tried to injure him but was able to defend himself. The criminals then filed a complaint against him with local police which confiscated his legally licensed handgun.

Another was a framer from Yavne’el who’s been suffering from invasions of his grazing lands by the Bedouin villagers of Rumat al-Heib, who cut down his fences and cause additional damages. Finally they stole cows from his barnyard, and when he complained to police, the Border Guard policeman who arrived to investigate stole one of his calves, then closed the file “for lack of public interest.” After the Farmers at the Forefront became involved on the farmer’s behalf the case was reopened and the robber policeman was indicted.

“We believe that once there’s an address for the farmers to turn to, the burglars will understand eventually that it doesn’t pay to mess with them,” declares Farmers at the Forefront. “We can’t continue to abandon Israel’s farmers in the field, literally. They guard our land, so we will guard them, and until the State does what it’s supposed to — we’ll do it.”

If you’ve recently shot a burglar on your farm or need any other kind of advise on your thieving villager neighbors, write to agro.law@regavim.org or call 02-547-0022.

More than 200 French Jews will arrive in Israel this Wednesday, July 20, aboard a special Aliyah flight organized by The Jewish Agency for Israel in partnership with the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption and Keren Hayesod-UIA.

This is the largest Aliyah flight from France set to land in Israel this summer. Half the new olim are teenagers, children, and toddlers who will enter the Israeli education system at the end of the summer vacation. The newcomers also include several families where three generations—grandparents, parents, and children—will be making Aliyah together. The olim will settle in Netanya, Raanana, Jerusalem, and Ashdod.

The flight was planned months ago, without any connection to recent events in France.

Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel Natan Sharansky said in a statement that “French Jews who immigrate to Israel are coming out of choice: they have a whole world of opportunities before them, and they are choosing to come to Israel. Their choice is demonstrates that Israel affords a sense of Jewish identity and attachment to those Jews who wish to take an active part in the Jewish story. We must do everything we can to ease their professional, educational, and personal integration into Israeli society and ensure that they feel at home from the moment they first set foot on our homeland’s soil.”

Minister of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Sofa Landver said: “In light of the difficult weekend in Nice, I wish to welcome the immigrants from France who chose to immigrate to Israel now. French Aliyah strengthens Israel, and the Government of Israel works tirelessly to ease their absorption – the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption will continue to work to remove obstacles to employment and create new opportunities for young immigrants from France, to illustrate to them that Israel is their home.”

Numbering just under half a million, the French Jewish community is the largest in Europe and the second-largest in the world outside of Israel. French Jewish immigration to Israel has surged since the year 2012, breaking records for Aliyah from France and from Western countries. 2014 marked the first time in Israel’s history that more than 1 percent of a Western Jewish community made Aliyah in a single year, an achievement repeated in 2015, with the arrival of some 7,800 immigrants from France – the most ever. In total, nearly 10% of the French Jewish community have immigrated to Israel since the year 2000, half in the past five years alone.

In response to this unprecedented demand from French Jews, The Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption have developed a special plan to facilitate Aliyah from France and ease French Jewish immigrants’ integration into Israeli society. The plan includes efforts to deepen young French Jews’ Jewish identity, bring them to experience Israel on a variety of programs, provide French Jews with comprehensive Aliyah information and counseling, remove barriers to employment, and increase the number of Jewish Agency shlichim (representatives) in France.

Some 200 Jews gathered Tuesday morning by the entrance to the Temple Mount compound, to commemorate Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, HY”D, who was murdered two weeks ago by an Arab terrorist in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba. Police then permitted some 50 to enter the Temple Mount, the largest group to ascend there this year—under heavy guard.

Following negotiation with the grieving family, Jerusalem police agreed to a more flexible visit, permitting the Jewish group a longer stay and not attempting to silence the uttering of blessings or saying Amen—as opposed to the 15-person limit in normal times and the complete prohibition of even the appearance of prayers or blessings.

The Muslims at the site cursed out the group and made repeated references to Allah, who is, they said, great.

One Jewish person was arrested earlier, according to Temple Mount activists, for the sin of closing his eyes and placing his hand over his eyes — an obvious criminal inclination to recite the Shema Israel.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and MK Bezalel Smotrich of Habayit Hayehudi, and MKs Yehuda Glick and Oren Hazan (Likud) participated in the event at the foot of Temple Mount, but were not allowed t ascend, by order of the prime minister. The ceremony at the entrance to the holy site ended in dancing and singing.

The murdered child’s parents said they’d like to change the name of the gate from “Mugrabim Gate,” after the north-African Arab dwellers in the area before 1967, to “Hallel Gate,” after their daughter and after the Hallel prayer which accompanies every religious Jewish holiday rejoicing.

Reuven Kahane and a group of investors from Silicon Alley and its Israeli counterpart Silicon Wadi are negotiating the purchase of a Jerusalem and a Manhattan Hotel to be transformed and merged into “Techotels,” to brand and serve as an innovation lab for the latest gadgets and innovations geared to the hotel and entertainment industries.

In addition to the latest technologies and tech-sponsored conferences, the Techotels will seek to become the central hub for hi-tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and executives in NY, Israel and the Bay Area, where they expect to purchase a third hotel within the year.

The four-year-old Jerusalem hotel, located minutes from the Old City, will keep its world-famous brand, while the Park Avenue South hotel in the heart of Silicon Alley will be renamed. The hotels will include guest friendly apps, smart keys, Robotic concierge, sensor screen check in Tesla car services, full service video conference rooms and always free, super fast Wi-Fi.

Ancient mosaics depicting Noah’s ark and the parting of the Red Sea have been discovered by university scholars and students excavating a synagogue in Israel that dates to the fifth century.

They also have uncovered coins spanning 2,300 years, says Nathan Elkins, Ph.D., an assistant professor of art history in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences, Waco, Texas. He specializes in the study of coins and serves as numismatist at the site in a former village called Huqoq.

“The ancient coins . . . are critical for our knowledge of the monumental synagogue and the associated village,” Elkins, a member of a team of staff and students from Baylor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto.

The mosaics decorate the floor of a synagogue that dates to the time when the area was ruled by the Roman Empire and when Christianity had become the empire’s official religion. The mosaics show an ark and pairs of animals including elephants, leopards, donkeys, snakes, bears, lions, ostriches, camels, sheep and goats.

The images also portray Pharaoh’s soldiers being swallowed by large fish, surrounded by overturned chariots with horses and chariot drivers.

Donkeys in Noah’s ark mosaic, Huqoq. / Courtesy

Excavations have continued in the synagogue every summer since the first mosaics were found in 2012. Since then, mosaics depicting Samson and the foxes (as related in the Bible’s Judges 15:4), Samson carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders (Judges 16:3), and a scene containing a Hebrew inscription surrounded by human figures, animals and mythological creatures have been uncovered.

The first non-biblical mosaic found in an ancient synagogue also was discovered at Huqoq, showing the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Financial support for the 2016 excavations was provided by the National Geographic Society and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Excavations are scheduled to continue in the summer of 2017. For information and updates about the site and excavation, visit www.Huqoq.org.

Nathan Elkins, Ph.D. / Courtesy

In addition to working with the excavation, Elkins has advocated for protecting ancient coins from looting and smuggling. He recently spoke at the Public Hearing of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC He urged that the Memoranda of Understanding be renewed to prevent thefts of undocumented ancient coins and antiquities from Greece into the United States.